i thought myself, quite extraordinary what was seen in germany especially. and i would like to ask, perhaps i could start with rick burt, and ask him to answer a simple question as you lay the groundwork year. were we really dealing with a serious strategic threat from the soviet union? >> well, that's a great, that's a great question. i think if you look at the deployments that you were just talking about of the ss-20, the western military district of the soviet union, in a broader context, a broad modernization and build up of the russian nuclear forces, marvin, i think not only viewed as a threat militarily, but it was also viewed in a word we used to use at that time, also viewed as a threat, a political threat, decoupling. security in the united states of the european allies. this decoupling concept actually originated in europe in the 1970s. and it's interesting and important to go back and look at the origin of this whole issue act to relate the german government, chancellor helmut schmidt, who, in the late '70s, started pointing to russian deployment